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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25937449">Dissonance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes'>panchostokes (badwolfrun)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Prompt Fics [92]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>CSI: Crime Scene Investigation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Comfort, Episode: s06e04 Shooting Stars, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nick Stokes Whump, Panic Attacks, Post Grave Danger, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:54:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25937449</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick has a panic attack in the bunker. Grissom and Catherine are there to witness it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gil Grissom &amp; Nick Stokes, Nick Stokes &amp; Catherine Willows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Prompt Fics [92]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540795</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dissonance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for an anon who asked for this on tumblr</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He hears the word “bunker” when he’s called in to process the scene, his only disappointment coming from thinking he’d have the morning off though really, he’s grateful for the distraction. Grateful for the rhythm of work versus the stark silence of home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sees the bunker itself when he pulls in, shooting his hand up to Greg in a friendly wave across the desert. Greets his fellow comrades on the field, a stride in his step that had been lost but was reborn anew from the fire filled ashes of an explosion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s directed into the bunker but it’s not until he takes the first steps into his descent that it sinks in, that the bunker is </span>
  <em>
    <span>underground. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He pauses, his lips parted as the words begin to chase him.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“It’s hot, you’ve got to move.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The doctor had encouraged him, there are eleven bodies he needed to photograph and process and the heat is not out of the ordinary in the Vegas climate, but suddenly, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>move.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Yeah, eighty feet underground, no A/C. Thought I was going to suffocate.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Nick turns back, for what, he’s not sure. Scouting to see if anybody is watching him? Coming up to him from behind with a cloth dosed in ether, only for him to wake up down in the earth where he belongs? Watching to see if anybody’s noticed his hesitation, offering to go down in his place so he doesn’t have to? </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I can’t even go down there. Claustrophobic.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He never thought he was claustrophobic. He’s had to go into pretty tight spaces for his job before, and continues to do so now, but the tight space isn’t necessarily the problem, but what it’s surrounded with. Unbreakable walls, an impenetrable cage with limited air, forcing him to choose his exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide very carefully though his body begins to pant in protest, the breath isn’t coming fast enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stumbles forward, gulping all the air he can keep down in hopes that he has a better reserve than he did the last time he was beneath the surface. He stands in the doorway, stares down into the endless void in front of him. He puts a hand out, it hits nothing and he thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>well, at least I can move</span>
  </em>
  <span> before he shoots one final glance behind him, one final plea to save him before he enters the compound, greeted with a twisting flight of stairs and a large fan looming above him that gives him the opposite of comfort. He watches as the light that used to be at his feet merges with the large apparatus, and feels smaller than ever before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he’s here to do a job, he reminds himself as he clutches his kit, grabbing onto the wooden columns for support during each turn as shaking legs dare to buckle beneath him. He focuses on the sounds, a dissonant tone in throbbing his ear drums that gets louder the deeper he gets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The large </span>
  <em>
    <span>whooping </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the fan’s blades slowly circulating the air above, though he feels like it’s taking more than it’s giving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hears his footsteps, loud and metallic as he clamors down the staircase in uneven, apprehensive fashion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hears his own breathing, loud, heavy, labored and </span>
  <em>
    <span>fast </span>
  </em>
  <span>because any minute, he’s going to run into a wall, and then another, and another, and another…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He keeps his eyes focused forward, doesn’t even see the officer heading towards him, a fortunate escapee from the center of the earth, who pauses to point him towards a long, wide but still far too narrow corridor.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Just keep on going.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>What other choice does he have?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hall is decorated with pulsating lights, illuminating the curved surface that seems to be caving in on him. He clutches the kit to his chest, the space becomes even tighter as two coroner’s assistants pass by with a gurney and an omen, a warning that he could be next. He switches his kit into his other hand before he pulls it up like a shield to his chest, he’s more prepared this time, he won’t be caught off guard--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finally arrives at the scene after his reverse mountain climb that seems to have taken as much of an effort as an actual mountain scaling, his breath is still playing catch up but falls behind when he takes in the scene.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bodies littered everywhere, but in a disturbing orderly fashion, like they were just sleeping patients instead of lifeless corpses. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a green tint to the room from the harsh lights above that he doesn’t realize is not a figment of his fractured mind until he sees it altered by the flashing of the camera’s captures. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh man. What is this place, a mini Jonestown?” he comments aloud, trying to hone in on the similar imagery of a mass suicide rather than the morphing imagery of his own body in a state of eternal slumber in a similar green-lit grave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't know if they drank spiked Kool-Aid, but they drank something. Smells like alcohol,” Catherine notes, and Nick can </span>
  <em>
    <span>taste </span>
  </em>
  <span>the smell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll process the...bottles,” he breathes, and brushes past, thankful for a direction and objective to focus on. A task, to put his body and mind to work. That’s all he needs. A distraction to get him into the zone where he doesn’t think about the whimpering memory inside of him, clawing at the walls closing in on his life leaving him to be forgotten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He instead thinks about the alcohol, and not how it had once knocked him out and rendered him into a useless rag doll to be undressed and imprisoned, but how this poor group of youth had partaken in it as part of a pact orchestrated by a leader who told them that simply, this is is the way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the dissonant ringing is still in his ears, shaking him between both worlds, both past and present and he just wants to propel himself into the future. It deafens him. Mutes him. Subdues him to a state of increasing panic because why can’t he move? Why can’t he breathe? Why can’t he </span>
  <em>
    <span>scream, </span>
  </em>
  <span>why can nobody hear him?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nick?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t even realize he’s hyperventilating until something cups the neck of a bag over his lips and he watches the brown paper inflate and shrivel between his crossing eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Slower, Nicky…” Catherine’s voice is commanding him, and he does his best to comply, but the shrinking of the bag scares him, makes him think that if he puts too much air into it, he’ll lose all that he has in his body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hands are trembling, he’s gripping onto his shirt, hugging himself because that’s all he has space to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look--” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine pulls one of his hands away, it’s a small struggle as his hand resists but the tension in his muscles release when he watches his arm extend to full length.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His breathing slows, and his other hand wraps around Catherine’s holding the bag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There we go, that’s it,” Catherine smiles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nick nods shortly, as he can actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>Catherine’s face now, his extended hand retreats back but finds its place on her shoulder, forming a connection in his solitary confinement. He lowers the bag as the smell of alcohol comes back to him, fearful that he’d vomit if he didn’t get at least some fresher air than his own regurgitation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay?” Catherine asks him, not knowing--how could she know, the damn tape was probably blown to smithereens, the callous words spoken to him by the disembodied voice of a dead man known only to his ears, and his ears alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Anyway you like, you’re going to die here.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head in a rare admission of truth, because he just needs a minute, really, and then he’ll be fine--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened?” Grissom asks sharply as he enters the room, as if things couldn’t get any worse. Nick groans into a sharp inhale that offsets his breathing, and his eyes start to bulge and oh shit, he’s trapped, he can’t get the air out now, too much air, he’s going to burst--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He starts to claw at his neck, his eyes wildly darting but follow the words floating out of Catherine’s mouth into Grissom’s ear, </span>
  <em>
    <span>panic attack, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Grissom immediately dives into action, dives toward Nick, firmly grabbing his shoulders before wrapping one hand around the back of head, and using the other to pry away Nick’s hand ripping at his own throat. He can feel the trickle of blood on his skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nicky, Nicky, hey...stop that, now,” Grissom coaxes him in an uncharacteristically soft voice. He hates it. Hates the disappointment underlying his tone, he had allowed Nick to come back to work and should expect one hundred percent out of his employee, trauma be damned. Nick is a failure, he’s dragging the team down even further than this bunker did--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay, you’re not under--” Grissom catches himself, as Nick’s eyes widen even more, “You’re not in the box,” he clarifies, but the sound is lost to the dirt shoving into Nick’s ears, muffling all sound behind a layer of glass that he can’t break through. “You hear me, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pancho? You’re not in the box.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>A cracking gasp releases the air from his lungs. His ears blow out, the flat tone erupts and he sinks down, feeling lighter and free from the crushing grip of the invisible box that he threw himself into. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-I’m sorry,” he whimpers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay--</span>
  <em>
    <span>hey, it’s okay,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Grissom reassures him, his voice more firm now, as he moves his face in front of Nick, ensures their eyes meet. He feels Catherine’s hand rise up on his back, up his neck, through his hair. Grissom’s hands cup around Nick’s, shaking him, continuing to reassure him that </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s okay.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This isn’t okay, though,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he protests to himself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This isn’t professional. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks around as curious eyes wander in his direction, his ears burn with embarrassment, knowing that in a few moment’s time, he’ll be the talk of every department for the rest of the day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He allows Catherine and Grissom to continue giving him the comfort that he also allows them to think is helping before he wipes his nose with the back of his finger. Clenches his jaw though his teeth tremble, unable to keep the high pitched, almost feminine sounds from leaving his throat. He shuts his eyes, and when he opens them again, he’s in the middle of a </span>
  <em>
    <span>crime scene, </span>
  </em>
  <span>one that isn’t his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to take these bottles back to the lab,” he mutters, and nearly trips as he runs out of the bunker, and away from his past.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only way out of rock bottom is up.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>It’s a conversation that nobody </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>wants to have.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Certainly not Grissom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine, maybe, she always took better to these more emotional confrontations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that this is a confrontation, no. Not an intervention. Not a discussion of discipline. It’s an approach. On a friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A friend who is so obviously hurting and suffering a condition that he’s in flat out denial of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A condition they were </span>
  <em>
    <span>all </span>
  </em>
  <span>in denial of, really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps they were all just blinded by how natural everything felt again, with the team getting back together, and though Catherine was still a little upset about her demotion she would still admit it was nice to have everyone on the same shift again, the same unification that brought them as close to a family unit more so than their own flesh and blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Nick, well, he was seemingly better than ever before. His head seemed clear, focused on work and standing just a bit taller, his head lifted in the optimism that kept him alive when most others would have just...given up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that’s not to say they weren’t surprised when he had the panic attack at the bunker, yet they weren’t necessarily expecting it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though Catherine was, apparently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“C’mon, Gil, it was pretty clear that he’d have </span>
  <em>
    <span>some </span>
  </em>
  <span>sort of reaction. The green light, the fan, being </span>
  <em>
    <span>underground...</span>
  </em>
  <span>Something had to give.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not giving Nick enough credit. He survived it, after all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And neither are you! Sure, he survived it once, and barely survived it again!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What would you have wanted me to do then? Keep him on a leash? Keep him in the lab?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, that’s not...We just have to...be more prepared, I guess, for this sort of thing. Or more...mindful of what his thoughts might be, even when he might not be himself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re not his parents, Cath,” Grissom sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, really?” Catherine laughs without a trace of humor. “Okay, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cisco,</span>
  </em>
  <span> you keep telling yourself that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that supposed to mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If this team really is a family, as you and everyone else, including myself, seems to think, well, you’re so obviously the dad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grissom pauses before reaching for his glasses, polishing them off as he stares at Catherine with pursed lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I’d rather be the inattentive but wise Uncle,” he muses and Catherine holds back a grin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can we just...I think we need to talk to him. I know he seemed okay on the phone, but I...I think we need to reach out.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re right,” Grissom nods. He checks his watch. “Should be in the locker room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They rise from their chairs and Grissom continues to think of the parent analogy. He only had nine years with his father, but he imagines that had he grown up in a more conventional family environment--as Nick had, he reminds himself when it seems Nick almost expected this to happen--he would have known that he and Catherine were yes, effectively playing Dad and Mom going to their son’s room to have a talk with him and ensure they were doing right by him in their mutual raising of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This about the bunker?” Nick asks without even looking up, he’s hunched over on the bench in the middle of the room, staring into the cup of his intertwined fingers, the only way he could keep them from trembling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They say nothing. Grissom closes the door behind him, sending a death glare to any eyes, such as Hodges’, that may be tempted to intrude on this private moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They flank him on the bench, though this time don’t touch him, and wait until he’s ready.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nick lifts up his head, his eyes shining in the reflection of the lights above. Redness surrounds them, perhaps he had been crying and perhaps he was just trying to keep it together. His ears perk up, hearing something that is unheard on their own ears, hoping that whatever it was, he didn’t listen to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was just...a bad day,” he begins. “I thought-thought I was gettin’ better, thought I was ready to be back n’ I’m not, I’m just so lost…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His accent is heavy, thicker, he’s getting increasingly upset. His fingers unlatch, Grissom focuses on the hand that was scratching his neck, a trace amount of blood underneath his usually well-kept but now marred fingernails, and follows the memory to the marks on Nick’s throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not lost. You’re here, with us. And you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>ready, Nick. I wouldn’t have let you come back if I didn’t think you were up for it,” Grissom tells him, reaching out for the damaged hand, and wrapping it in his own. He watches as Nick’s chest rises, a sound escaping his lips that doesn’t quell his concern but hopes that his words had reached Nick in ways they never had before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows now, that he needed to be more vocal about his belief in Nick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going to have bad days. You’re going to have flashbacks, and panic attacks and I know you want to...but there are things you just...can’t forget,” Catherine adds, reaching for the other hand. “You’re good at hiding things, but you can’t keep hiding forever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows that he knows what she’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>referring to, and hopes that he knows she didn’t say any of this as an abuse of that trust, but just an affirmation, that what happened has happened, and he can’t just ignore it, else it’ll sneak up and consume him like the hundreds of ants that devoured pieces of himself that he’ll never get back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know…” Nick mutters. “I know, but I know that I’m...I’m stronger than this. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Better </span>
  </em>
  <span>than this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Better than’ what, yourself?” Grissom asks. “Nicky, you...you survived what nobody else could have--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y’all coulda…” he chokes, and his face squeezes in on itself. His grip on each hand that holds his tightens, he wants to just wipe his face, move on, leave this moment and move onto the next and hope that he can keep himself together, composed, but he feels like everything is just unraveling as he keeps searching for what was left in the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And hey, we’re not asking for you to talk about how you feel every day or anything,” Catherine redirects the conversation. “We just want you to know that when you do have those dark moments, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>okay.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not about the fall, it’s how you get back up,” Grissom reminds him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you ever need space, just...let us know. Or whatever you need. We want to help you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nick nods, his eyes still shut tight. He won’t tell them, but he’s not in the locker room. He’s in the hospital, and Grissom and Catherine aren’t the only ones there. Warrick. Sara. Greg. All surrounding him, their hands on him, feeding him the strength he needs to rise back up, compose himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Find </span>
  </em>
  <span>himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” he breathes. He opens his eyes, looks at each pillar of support besides himself, before looking forward, and nodding as his heart settles back into his rib cage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the nausea in his stomach dissipates. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the endless, crushing hum in his ears releases him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He falls back into the rhythm of life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His life, above ground.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
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